The best way to start the day

Month: September 2016

I know a lot of people aren’t going to get this, but my favourite thing is to be alone.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t like visiting with friends, going out, spending time with family and loved ones, it just means that I really enjoy being with the one person I am never away from … me.

So, seeing as I am always with me, what is the big deal about spending time alone?
That is when I recharge instead of being drained. When I have time to think instead of solving problems, when I can start on one thing and end up somewhere altogether somewhere else and have such a good time along the way. When the tick tock I hear is my beating heart and not the clock…

What do I want to do when I am alone? Nothing and everything. The most activity takes place in my head. I can be reading a novel, sorting through some of the many articles I have kept, tidying up files on my computer, or on an extremely rare occasion watching a movie by myself. I have looked through loads of websites for hobbies, but I haven’t found anything that irritates me. (Suggestions welcome)

Some people cannot be alone. While having the utmost sympathy for people who always have to be around others to be entertained, I just don’t get that they don’t know themselves well enough to appreciate the person they are. Unless of course, they are a bit of a jerk, in which case it would depend on themselves if they were willing to change. Unfortunately, people don’t know what they don’t know and some don’t want to do anything about it even if they did!

Others are lonely even when they are with people. From my experience, those people maybe want to be with people that aren’t there anymore instead of trying to enjoy the people with them at the moment.

Have you ever played the “Ja but” game? It goes like this:

• It’s so nice to be by myself. Ja but wait, one day when you are all alone, you will be sorry
• It’s so nice to have such silence. Ja but wait, if you go deaf one day, you will wish to hear the sounds again
We even do it with the weather!!
• Lovely warm weather. Ja but wait, just now we are going to be wishing for cooler days
• Nice to have rain. Ja but wait, there’ll be too much and then there’ll be floods

Wow – we complain about EVERYTHING – and the most about things we can’t even control!

Which brings me back to me. I am going through a much needed recharge at the moment. Everything and everybody was just getting too much for me. Things that normally didn’t even bother me was suddenly demanding a reaction that would have involved temper tantrums in the least and violence at the most. Thinking back now, I’m actually ashamed that things have got to this point, but having gone through burnout in 2009, it feels like it is starting again and if it took me three months and intense therapy to recover last time, I don’t want to go through that again.

So I have imposed a two week absence from work on myself. I know it sounds crazy, seeing as we work from home, but luckily my office is inside so I can physically separate myself. Mentally it’s not so easy, because there are still things I want to work on, part of the stress that has been building up – but I need to be away from that daily having to deal with things.

And thanks to my awesome team at MGL, with Viv fielding the calls and supported by Helen, I am able to step away. Almost away. As away as possible.

May you too take an opportunity to step away, recharge and make a good start.